


Everything is not as it seems//Phan

by Casey_Clarke



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Phanfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 21:56:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11067924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casey_Clarke/pseuds/Casey_Clarke
Summary: A fluffy Phanfiction where Dan and Phil are struggling to survive because YouTube is failing.TW: mentions of self-harm and depression, swearing





	Everything is not as it seems//Phan

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-part fiction so don't expect any updates :)  
> I know it's short please don't kill me  
> This might be the last Phanfiction I ever write because I'm not really into writing lol  
> but I wrote this in english and thought it was good so here you go  
> hope you enjoy!

Everything is not as it seems//Phan  
By Casey Clarke (@locomunkycasey)  
TW: mentions of self-harm and depression, swearing  
A tall, thin boy with hobbit like hair sits on his bed talking to a camera. This is Dan’s life, endlessly producing content for the video platform, YouTube. In his videos, he is a happy, energetic and clumsy guy, however when the camera turns off it’s a different story.

Dan is struggling to survive. He has barely enough money to afford to survive, and it’s impacting his mental health in bad ways. He wants to live normally, but he can’t afford to do anything other than on the internet. The internet is his only escape, the only place where his life is what he wants it to be.

He films a video for his YouTube series ‘reasons why Dan’s a fail (yay)’, a video series where Dan explains all of the comically awful things that he can’t do properly, like having butterfingers and being extremely awkward in public.

After filming, he goes to his fridge to find something to eat, but finds it empty. He closes the door and lies down on his bed, freezing from the cold as he has no heating. He wishes Phil, his boyfriend was with him to keep him warm, but he was out vlogging for his own YouTube channel, AmazingPhil.

Dan wishes he could vlog with Phil, but the Phan shippers will do anything to expose them, so usually he stays home. He thinks about how much better his life is with Phil, then he runs his hands over his wrists, red with thin cuts from when he felt like he couldn’t do it anymore and wanted death.

Dan decides to go shopping for food, even though he doesn’t feel hungry. He grabs his wallet, discovers it only has $20 in it and picks up his coat. He needs to buy food for one whole week with $20, “Fuck, I guess we’re starving this week” he mumbles followed by “I’m so sorry Phil, I just can’t afford anything and I’m a failure”.  
\-   
Dan used to be able to afford anything he wanted or needed, but now he lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his boyfriend; Phil, mostly empty apart from some cheap furniture that he found on the side of the road. 

His YouTube career is failing, having lost most of his subscribers as they had gotten bored of his content. There are no available jobs in London, as the population is too much for the city to handle. They have no source of income apart from the small amount of ad revenue from their YouTube channels: Daniel Howell, AmazingPhil, Danisnotinteresting, LessAmazingPhil, DanandPhilCRAFTS and their shared gaming channel DanandPhilGAMES.  
-

Dan grabs his bag and walks out the door into the bitterly cold air. When he arrives at Tesco, he goes to the non-perishable food aisle and puts a pack of 2 minute noodles and some vegetables, as that’s all he can afford. He walks to the checkout, pays for his food and starts walking home.

When home, he opens his laptop to read some of the comments of his latest video, Tumblr tag 3. Dan scrolls past the usual spam and likes any meaningful comments. He scrolls for a while longer, discovering a trend in the comments, “remember when this channel was relevant”, “remember when Dan and Phil were relevant”. It makes his heart sink. Comment after comment, it seems as if no one cares about him anymore, was he becoming irrelevant? His mind suddenly goes to a dark place, and he wonders, with tears trickling down his face “Maybe people would care if I wasn’t here” he whispers to himself. Dan contemplates getting a blade and slashing his skin, but then he hears a knock on the door.

It’s his boyfriend Phil. Phil immediately grabs Dan and hugs him for what seems like forever, and as soon as he pulls away, he asks Dan softly “what’s wrong Dan?”. Dan replies bluntly with “Nothing, just stressed”. Phil knows this isn’t true, but he doesn’t want him to be forced to say anything, so he agrees hesitantly.  
-  
Phil is also a YouTuber; however, he does daily vlogs so he does exciting things to get more views. Phil hates the way they live now, but Dan is with him so he has happiness even though they are only just surviving.  
-  
For dinner, Dan starts to prepare a packet of noodles when Phil stops him. “you don’t need to cook those” he says to Dan.  
Dan asks “why, it’s the only thing we have to eat in the house”.  
“I’ve been invited to a YouTuber party and I want you to come with me” Phil says, putting away the saucepan and turning off the stove.  
Dan stands there for a while, silently questioning why he wasn’t good enough to be invited, as he has the same amount of subscribers as Phil. He agrees to go, and goes into his bedroom to find some skinny jeans and a clean T-shirt.

When they are ready to go, they walk out of their door, lock it and set off into the cold darkness to the party.  
They are holding hands because it is extremely cold, and a group of people start shouting homophobic remarks at them, things like “Oh look, those two fags are being straight to hell!”. They are both used to this so they ignore it and keep walking.

When they arrive at the party, they are greeted with vloggers sticking cameras in their faces, asking them to be in their YouTube video. Alfie Dayes, the person who is running the party, greets them by saying “Hi Phil” followed by “Oh hi Dan” unenthusiastically. Phil tells Dan to ‘just ignore him’. Phil knows he won’t but it’s worth a try anyway.

While at the party, some larger YouTubers present a talk about how YouTube is dying and how to help it gain more popularity that it had a few years ago. They come up with some ideas, like bigger YouTubers making series similar to a TV shows. They decide to make it a paid service, and call it ‘YouTube Red’. It will have no ads for viewers, and have exclusive series from the largest YouTubers, like Rhett and Links ‘Buddy System’.

While at the party, everyone is vlogging so they can’t hold hands because the Phan shippers will lose their shit. They absolutely hate it, but there is no getting around it, they just have to act platonically whenever they are out in public. 

It is about 10:30pm when they leave the party, slightly intoxicated from the complimentary rosé that was offered at the party after the talk. They slowly stumbled home in the freezing cold, arriving at their front door at close to midnight. They spend five minutes trying to unlock their door, and when they finally find the right key, they stumble in and almost fall over each other’s feet. 

Finally, when they get into their pyjamas and find the way to their bed, they lie right next to each other, using each other’s body heat to keep them warm. They are both comfortable, even though they are both lying in extremely weird positions and it’s freezing cold. They forget everything, the constant worry that they won’t have enough money to pay for their rent, YouTube might completely flop or that they might freeze to death because it’s so fucking cold.  
As they lay there, drunk and tired they remember, as long as they have each other, everything will get better.   
Eventually...


End file.
